The Shedd Institute is pleased to introduce microphilharmonic in Harmonie I, its first concert, on Sunday, March 4 at 3:00 pm in The Shedd’s newly-remodeled Jaqua Concert Hall. A new classical music ensemble created by clarinetist Michael Anderson and violinist Alice Blankenship, microphilharmonic will be dedicated to smaller pieces and arrangements from the classical symphonic, chamber and operatic repertoire. “As you probably know,” explains Anderson, “the word philharmonic often refers to a large orchestra like the Vienna or Berlin Philharmonic, but it also means “music lover”. With microphilharmonic, we’d like to explore small (micro) arrangements of big symphonic or operatic works. Hence the name 'microphilharmonic'.”

The March 4th premiere concert will feature chamber music for wind ensemble called “Harmoniemusik” or “Harmonie”, a German word that refers to a wind ensemble that emerged in the royal courts of Germany and central Europe and flourished from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s. The greatest composers of the time, including Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and Schubert, wrote wonderful music for Harmonie. This music was often commissioned for royal entertainment, but there were several uses for this music including concerts, outdoor festivals, and street music promoting the popular music for the day, opera.

The main work presented on March 4th will be a substantial selection from the excellent contemporary arrangement for Harmonie for 8 winds plus double bass of Mozart’s great opera Don Giovanni by Bohemian composer and oboist Josef Triebensee (1772-1846), played in the Vienna premiere of the opera in May 1787. microphilharmonic will play the overture and selections of the most popular arias and ensemble numbers in a suite that lasts about 40 minutes. After attending a performance of Don Giovanni in Vienna in May 1787, the audience was treated to hearing Triebensee’s arrangement played by street musicians outside the theater!

The program also features selections from Suites To Play By A Spring, a Harmonie for nine winds written by a German-American composer, David Moritz Michael (1751-1827) for a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Moravian church’s Whit Monday outdoor community celebration in 1810.

The concert opens with Beethoven’s great Sextet, Opus 71, as a wonderful example of Harmoniemusik written in 1796 for Maximilian Franz, the Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, who thought music was good for his digestion and so had a Harmonie at his Bonn residence to accompany his meals.